Rhaenyra The Reformer

ch 4

Horrible.

That is the the only word that comes to his mind in order to describe the living conditions of the people of the city.
Well there were other words too like'terrifying and tragic'but that wasn't the main thing which was in his mind,  the petition was .

The petition which was to decide his fate, the fate of driftmark and the fate of the velaryon and the fate of the people of driftmark, yes them too.

He didn't want it. Not at all,  he would never be at peace if he had it that much he knew for sure. He had tried to soothe his heart by assuring himself that it wouldn't he so bad,  if he had sweet rhaena by his side, nothing had been set in stone but both rhaena and he knew in their hearts that they would be Wed one day. and his mother and brothers would be there too.
But the real problem was that he hated that place
He hated driftmark. Utterly and that too with a deep burning passion .
The last and the first time he was on the isle,  his whole life changed before his very eyes, his aunt died,  his father died and the fight with aemond happened.
Lucerys concluded that these reasons were more than enough to hate driftmark and not want it but now they were forcing him to have driftmark,  they say that it's his Responsibility and birth right.
And now they had come to this place to fight for his birthright which he didn't want to claim.

He never expressed himself though because would it not be odd that the future lord driftmark hates his own inheritance?

He dreaded that day, he dreaded it so much and wanted to avoid it as long as possible, thankfully his mother had entrusted him and rhaena to visit the orphanages built by his grandmother,  Queen Aemma arryn ,and to distribute alms and bread to the poor and children.  He had thought of this as an escape way at first but now that he saw the living conditions of the people of this city, helping these people soothed his heart and calmed his nerves,  it provided a curious warm feeling to his heart.

They had visited the streets,  the markets, the orphanages and visited the children and provided the poor with bread,  heard their grievances and toured the city with the city watch.

Though this task given to him and rhaena was only to last till yesterday,  for today was the day of the petition.
He could not run away from the petition, he could not so he decided to run away from it as long as he could,  that day lucerys rose before the sun and asked rhaena to go to the city one more time as final goodbye before they departed for dragonsttone after the petition. Baela too came with them for she thought the red keep too red and wanted a bit of the mud brown of the city.  When rhaena asked her of her Tea Party with princes helaena, baela quickly ended the topic with a brash and rough report of the tea party"she was meek and silent,  only uttering some few words about smoke, sheep and anger under her breath before she started staring at dragon pit from the balcony"
When asked about the twins she smiled and said"they were different from their mother, almost as if they had some curse on them that they couldn't stop asking questions or lest they die"

They asked the cargyll brothers to escort them and they had went about their day just as they had for the past few days until they couldn't, because a messenger arrived from the red keep summoning us back for the petition would soon begin.

And his heart sank till it couldn't sink deeper, he couldn't hear anything around him and everything started moving so very slowly, he wished it would stay like this until baela smacked his head and he was conscious once more.

"Ah yes,the petition"he uttered and then turned to rhaena"we should go now" to which rhaena nodded, after which they made their way for the red keep but as they got out on the streets, they noticed that there was a huge commotion,  and enthusiastic one to be exact,  people were pushing each other and staring out in the sky with surprise as they shouted "PRINCE JACAERYS! " "PRINCE DAEMON" "THE PRINCE OF FLEABOTTOM"
When they looked in the direction of rhaeny's hill they saw 2  dragons flying and doing acrobatic tricks and erupting flames in the sky, every now and then,  the dragons were the jade green and cream orange colored dragon Vermax and the infamous Blood wyrm, ceraxes.

The dragons were getting more visible and larger each second before they flew over the street they were on and the smallfolk started cheering

After a while as the crowd dispersed, their escort guards made way for them and they started riding back to the red keep

"this must have been Jace's task then"baela said unannounced

"but entertaining the smallfolk does not sound so crucial, why did princess rhaenyra told jace and father to do this then? "rhaena asked her twin

"it's not just entertaining the smallfolk rhaena, do you not see? We were all told to do tasks that were in relation to reputation of our family before the crown and the commons,  I am starting to believe there is a bigger picture to our visit in the city than Luke's petition"baela told rhaena after which they started talking about something.
Luke didn't hear them afterwards, he went into his own thoughts
'jace and prince daemon for the smallfolk, him and rhaena for the streets and baela to sway aunt helaena. That much he understood by now but what of mother? '

Suddenly it came to him"then mother must be with vaemond or perhaps grandmother, yes either of them, she is doing something, changing something' all he could wish was that his mother was changing his fate, his fate that would bind him to the place  he has dreaded the most in his life.